


Be Prepared

by Shazrolane



Category: 28 Weeks Later (2007)
Genre: Challenge fic, Characters being proactive, Doyle Lives!, Fix-It, Gen, ingenuity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-18
Updated: 2014-06-18
Packaged: 2018-02-05 05:25:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1806910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shazrolane/pseuds/Shazrolane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Delta Force doesn't have a motto, so Doyle borrowed one from the Boy Scouts.</p>
<p>This was part of a fic swap challenge at The Beta Branch; one author wrote a kick starter, and another author was supposed to finish it. I turned this on its head and wrote the beginning. I wrote up to the first line of asterisks; after that, it's the kick starter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Be Prepared

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for gratuitous misuse of science and bad chemistry. I did approx. 5 minutes of research on Wikipedia for Doyle’s MacGuyver moments. Do NOT, under any circumstances, delude yourself that this will work. While I loved Organic Chemistry, the pitying looks my lab TA's gave me led me to believe that my attempts to be a chemist were less than spectacular. My grades bore this out.

“During the expected state of Code Green, your primary duties will be clean up and decontamination. It’s been six months, and every piece of evidence we have says that the…people infected with the Rage virus were incapable of taking care of their basic needs. They all should have starved to death long ago. As long as everyone takes precautions and doesn’t do anything stupid, then everything is going to work out just fine.”

Doyle gave the side eye to his buddy Flynn. As long as no one did anything stupid – had these people never MET other people? Someone was always doing something stupid. As soon as you made something fool proof, someone figured out a way to be a better fool.

“You thinking what I’m thinking?” he whispered.

“We’re all FUBAR?” Flynn replied, barely moving his lips and never taking his eyes off of the presenter.

“SNAFU,” Doyle agreed, then went back to paying attention.

“Code Yellow indicates there is some threat, not related to the Rage virus. This will require the use of normal force, which may include deadly force.”

“Code Orange indicates there is a threat related to the Rage virus, in which case the use of deadly force from a distance is immediately warranted. Obviously we do not envision this scenario occurring, but we prefer to plan for all eventualities.”

The pilot glanced at the sniper, who smirked.

The presenter took a few questions, then started to pack up, when Doyle spoke up. 

“Couldn’t help but notice that your handy little scale there went up to Red.” All of the military personnel settled back in their seats; Doyle hadn’t been the only one to notice that.

The presenter looked a little flustered, but nodded. “Yes, we have planned for a Code Red scenario, but it’s highly unlikely that-“

Flynn interrupted him, “What exactly would a Code Red entail?”

“More extreme measures,” was the reply.

“Such as?” Flynn pressed.

Every soldier, Marine and Airman in the crowd waited for the reply. The scientist/politician/diplomat/whatever the hell he was paused for a moment, looking them over, then conceded the point. “Step One, kill the infected. Step Two, containment. Step Three Extermination.”

Doyle looked at Flynn. “Extermination?”

Flynn nodded. “Bullets, fire, chemical weapons, you name it. We’ve got it all, ready for the Air Cavalry.”

Doyle nodded at the presenter. “He doesn’t seem to think we’ll need it.”

Flynn looked more serious than Doyle had ever seen him before. “I hope to God not.”

After a week of classes in how to identify incredibly dangerous materials (anything with bodily fluids on it) from the merely dangerous materials (anything that couldn’t be sterilized with bleach), the troops were set to the task of cleaning out District One.

House by house, they drove up, kicked in the door and trooped in. The worst part, obviously, was the bodies, bloated and stinking and starved, with lips pulled back in rage even after death. Often the areas around them were covered in black, sticky fluids that resisted any efforts to clean them up. These houses were deemed uninhabitable and marked for burning.

But there were surprisingly few of those. The majority of the infected had died in great herds along walls, in tunnels, or in the rivers or oceans.

Most of the houses were eerily still and silent, caught frozen in that moment when the owners had left, often just for a day's work. Breakfast dishes would be in the sink, a pile of towels and pyjamas on the bathroom floor. Meat left to defrost on a counter, perhaps. A condom wrapper discarded on a bedroom floor. Several sets of clothes laid out in a child's room, a reminder that the infection had struck in the early morning hours of a Tuesday. It was a deeply intimate look into the lives of ordinary people, and it was deeply disturbing.

At least until the stench penetrated the masks they wore. Even the so-called ‘clean houses’ still had food in the refrigerators, garbage in the cans, dirty dishes, maybe a load of laundry in a washing machine. Rats and mice had come in through small openings, broken windows, open doors. Stray cats and dogs had followed the mice, and all had left their own contributions to the smell.

On top of that were the roaches. Some houses were carpeted in them. There were so many that you could actually hear them. They emitted their own, particular smell, a bit like vinegar. 

The first step of clearing a house was to spray the roaches, then move on to another house because the pesticides took time to work. By the time they’d sprayed four houses, it had been long enough for them to move back to the first house, where they’d sweep the now dead carpet of roaches into bags. After that, the house was stripped down to bare concrete and stone and wall studs, then sprayed with bleach. 

Everything that had bodily fluids went into a red bag, everything that couldn’t be decontaminated with bleach went into a yellow bag and all of them were carried out to the curb. As a final precaution, a layer of boric acid was laid down to kill any roaches that had survived the initial treatment. The front door was then given a mark to indicate that the house had been cleaned, and they moved on to the next one.

It was sweaty, filthy, exhausting work that had to be done with care and precision, along with a good amount of muscle. That was never a good combination. People started out extremely focused, but as the work became familiar and monotonous, human nature took over. 

It was easy to find jewelry, knick knacks. A pair of dice for gambling, a DVD of a movie you hadn’t seen. A bottle of nail polish, a bottle of wine. Doyle didn’t see anyone taking something that wasn’t hard, that couldn’t be sanitized with bleach, but he wasn’t everywhere. He wasn’t the virus police. They all were, and their policing was only as good as they were. 

He was no different; he took souvenirs of his own. But his was a box of boric acid.

Waverly was the only one who said anything. Maybe she was the only one who noticed, maybe she was the only one who cared, whatever it was, she smirked at him. “Got a bug problem, Doyle? Stop hoarding those Pop-tarts.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he replied. “They’re Twinkies.”

The resealable gallon bags were easy. Getting enough of them took a few tries, but he eventually had quite a stash built up on his favorite rooftop perch. Duct tape was also easy; almost every garage had at least one roll. 

He wasn't always on clean up duty, none of them were. Everyone rotated through, one week on and several weeks off. So most of his time was spent on rooftops, bored out of his mind, while still trying to remain focused on his job. He knew all too well that problems and terrorists snuck up on you during those tiny cracks in your concentration, those seconds when your mind and your eyes wandered. So he talked and joked and tried to keep watch but this was the most ass backwards combat he'd ever been in.

So the hours of watchfulness turned into most of an hour, broken up by moments of Resettlement TV, aka staring at windows through his scope. It was alternately sweet (a couple that held hands as they fell asleep every night), disgusting (bugnuts), trivial (she really started a fight over the toilet seat being left up?) and racy (hello couple on the 7th floor!), and really just made him miss reality TV.

Downtime wasn't much better. Cards with people who cheated, and who he’d cheated, a thousand times before. One theater, shared with the civilians. Showers could be a distraction but they were rationed. So was the beer in the pub. And it was dark and warm and he was just tired of it all, tired of waiting for the axe to fall. At least he had his preparations to plan out.

He kept an eye out for the other items on his wish list, but it took some time. It took two more sessions of housecleaning before he found a box of diapers. He almost missed them - it wasn’t the same brand his sister used, so the packaging was different, and they were labeled as nappies instead of diapers, but there was a picture of a clean and happy kid on them, so he opened the box and hit paydirt. 

This find was harder to explain. He finally told everyone that one of the commanding officers who WOULD NOT BE NAMED had a diaper fetish and would get him whiskey in return for the box of nappies. 

He was pretty sure most of the unit thought HE was the one with the diaper fetish. FML moment, right?

Late at night, he went up to a nearby rooftop, where he kept his supplies. The buckets were half full of rainwater. He ended up with 5 gallons of water, to which he added clear plastic pellets gathered from the diapers. The pellets swelled up into a slimy gel, which he scooped into the resealable gallon bags. He poured in a small amount, stapled across the bag to keep the gal in place, and then sealed the puncture holes with the duct tape. Then he repeated, until the bag was full. He filled as many bags as he could this way.

After every rainy day, he’d go up to his rooftop and go through the steps again, until he had enough plastic bags full to make something that vaguely resembled a vest and fit underneath a uniform shirt that was one size too big. He brought both the bag contraption and the larger uniform up to his sniper perch and hid them there. 

He managed to find the final item he needed in a house, at last. Marrett shot him a questioning look when he came out of the house with a box of borax. "Laundry day?"

"You never know," Doyle said. "Gotta be prepared."

The next night he had rooftop duty, he pulled out the tarp he had ‘acquired’ earlier, along with some old signs and a few boards, and made a makeshift tub. He filled it with rainwater from his buckets, and measured out the borax and boric acid. In went all of his uniforms, except for the one he was wearing, of course.

His sister had married a firefighter, who shared a home made fire retardant recipe for clothes, curtains, etc. The firefighter had also mentioned the history of the fire retardant gel they used to protect houses from wildfires. 

Be prepared - it wasn’t just for Boy Scouts. 

He soaked his last uniform, and the oversize shirt, the next night he was on the roof. Then it was back to Resettlement TV, and scaring the hell out of Flynn whenever he had a chance.

120 days after the NATO forces arrive, the world went to shit.

******************

Sergeant Doyle didn’t feel pain anymore. Where moments before, he had been in agony, watching taillights disappear into a white, deadly mist as he was engulfed by the flames of Hell, now, he felt…nothing. It was a relief, in a way. He’d done his part and gotten the last two surviving civilians and officer under his protection out of the city center and hopefully into Flynn’s capable hands. His work was done.

Or so he thought, until someone grabbed at his blackened BDU’s, turning him over. Rough fingers pawed at his neck, feeling for a pulse. If he had been able to take a solid breath, he would have screamed; he settled for a quiet moan instead.

“Over here - there’s a survivor! Oh, God…”

“What the hell are you doing? He could be infected!”

Recognizing the rough shape of a military uniform of some kind, he shifted slightly in an attempt to get away. He had left his original post – were they here to take him away? As masked figures surrounded him, he finally surrendered to the waiting darkness, with only one thought crossing his mind.

Aw, fuck – just shoot me already.

* * * * * * *

“We need more Atropine, stat!”

“- Didn’t think he’d…long. God damn nerve gas – it never ends well...Breathing that…in, I’ll be surprised if he doesn’t wake up a vegetable. I’m telling you -”

“…C’mon, Sarge, don’t fight the tu- … it’s for your own good. Aw, shit, his fever’s spiked again. Where is that …”

Lights filtered in above, making him squint as the broken voices drew him out of a slumber. Foggy shapes moved around, shifting back and forth, like some of the slower, shambling infected. He twitched slightly at the memory. Soon, a steady hum from nearby lulled him back to sleep.

“Third degree burns over his hands, head, and upper back. Second degree burns along most of his lower back and covering the backs of his legs. We think he tried to smother it by rolling –”

“Holy shit – his eyes…moving. Get…Doc!”

“He’s still in critical condition! I can’t let…”

“-Be court-martialed. Is that what you want?”

The shapes were back, gathering around, closing in and reaching for him. He drew his arms back instinctively, crying out as he felt the sharp pain of damaged skin, still blistered and reddened. His arms and hands looked like hamburger – the perfect food for a hungry infected zombie…necro…whatever the hell HQ had called them.

There had to be more of them, lurking in the shadows.

“-Need you to back off, sir…scaring the patient.”

“Don’t tell me what to do. The man’s a trained soldier –”

“Everybody out! Except you, doctor,” an authoritative voice ordered. There was more shuffling as the shapes finally left him alone.

Doyle mumbled his appreciation before hissing in pain again.

The voice soon returned, tsking quietly. “Welcome back to the land of the living, Sergeant Doyle. I believe you and I need to have a little conversation.”


End file.
